Revisiting past

Dear Ben
submitted: 1/31/2003 10:18 AM
by: lilly3653@aol.com
Dear Ben,

Last night I went to a concert at Royal Festival Hall in London where LPO was playing under Kurt Masur two very different pieces: Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Shostacovich's 13th Symphony Babi Yar. I had bought 3 extra tickets over two weeks ago but have not really worked out who I wanted to go with on this occassion.

At the last minute I remembered your story of the Polish waiter, his wife and taxi driver all of who you encouraged to come for the first time. So, I did the same.

First I invited my young Ethiopian mentee Tesfaye - a refuge who came to UK fleeing persecution in his home country. He accepted. Then together, about 15 minutes before the start we went out and asked several young scateborders under the arches if they wanted two free tickets for the tonight's concert. Second couple seemed first taken a back, than said they are not dressed up and after getting that there were absolutely no strings attached got really excited about the prospect.

Thus, I was joined at the concert by three classical music concert attendee 'virgins'. And we were a truly international group. They are all students. Jonathan was so excited when we got into the hall saying how his grandfather would be really pleased and will certainly know all about the music he was about to hear. Nina is from Malasia and never thought she would like this kind of music. So, with scating boards under the seats and a program to know what we are about to hear we took our places.

In the end, they all said how much they enjoyed the occassion and having found that one could get the tickets for 6 pounds where the view may be restricted but the sound is fine, all said they will come again and also encourage their friends to attend as well. Nina loved the sound of the violins. It also turned out that Tesfaye was applying to study at the college they are attending so Nina and Jonathan offered him advice on the interviewing behaviour, questions to ask, what to think about and most of all the encouragement of peers.

I can not tell you what pleasure it gave me to see the joy and excitement on these young students faces as they abandoned their plan to go out with friends and take the possibility of doing something totally unexpected fully on! And they gave me their names and email addresses so we can be in touch in the future.

Acts of random kindness do bring bright eyes and change the world!

Kind regards

Lilly
RE:Dear Ben
submitted: 2/2/2003 10:59 AM
by: office@benjaminzander.com
Lilly,

What a great story! Of course, I am not a bit surprised. And remember those "kids" didn't have any particular help with understanding the music they were hearing. Imagine if someone had given them a vivid and exciting guided tour through the incredibly moving and powerful message of that music about Babi Yar! Their minds would have been blown.

When I did that same piece a few years ago in Boston (incidentally with the same bass-baritone, Sergei Leiferkus), I gave a talk before, then we performed the exquisitely beautiful and haunting Songs of Jewish Poetry (also by Shostakovitch), which explores the deep emotions of the Jewish people. Then Yevgeny Yevtoshenko read fiurst in Russian then in English his poem Babi Yar which Shostokovitch had used in the symphony, and then we performed thesymphony depicting the emotions surrounding the destruction of the jewish community at Babi Yar. I don't think there is a person on the face of the earth who would not have been moved to their core by that experience.

Thank you for sharing your story.

"Everybody loves classical music, they just haven't found out about it yet."

with great love

Ben
The Art of Possibility in action
submitted: 1/28/2003 10:52 AM
by: lilly3653@aol.com
Dear Ben,

This is a story of many strands. They are all exciting. And they weave
across the world. What they have in common is the desire to have all those involved succeed. It is all linked by your presence on the video in a
lecture theatre in Cape Town last summer!

A short preamble will set the context. A more detailed story of how I came
across your video by chance and the impact its playing had on my class of 50 MBA students follows. We then fast forward to this week in London and the encounter with one of those students. Finally, a request for you to sign several copies of your book for my dear young friends and relatives.

I have been exposed to the application of breakthrough thinking for over 10 years now! After leaving the secure job in a large and respected (still)
multinational, I went through an extensive personal development program where I was focused on developing my enrolment capabilities. So, the Art of Possibility spoke to me immediately. I saw the articles about you in the Sunday Times two years ago and stored it in my memory for later!

Last summer at just two week's notice I was invited to give an Advanced Leadership progam to a class of 20 MBA students Graduate School of Business in Cape Town. This was my first assignment there. I left London with a clear idea that this was going to be a program that would transform us all. I had no idea how I was going to do it. I only knew that it would have to be highly experiential and that I should lecture very little.

When I arrived it turned out that I had a class of 50 students. Giving each
personal attention under those circumstances is very difficult. So I had to
be creative, different and bold.

A day before my first class I sent a message to all, as the students there use email extensively. It was to ask them to prepare to introduce themselves to the class by telling us in only 1 minute about the Most Transformative Moment in their life.

The next evening, as I walked into the lecture theatre I still had no idea if I
could pull this off. Plan B was ready. I briefly introduced myself and
explained that this is not my course, but their course. As I am there to help them become leaders, I have to know what they need individually to
accomplish this. I asked them to be ready for a rollercoaster ride of learning from each other. I started by telling the class about my own most transformative event.

It was the car accident in which 20 years ago my whole family was killed and I was badly injured, saved by the seat belt that my PhD supervisor (I was doing computing degree) insisted I should wear! As a result, all my long term plans were worthless. I learnt to live in a way that
opens the future.

And then in order, the whole class came down. Their stories were just
breathtaking. We all sat in silence for almost an hour until the whole process was finished.

At that moment I decided that ,since they will be defining the success of the course for themselves and letting me know how we will both see it at the end of the course in 6 weeks, the marks were almost irrelevant. So, I told them that they all start with 100% and from now on can only lose marks.

As you can imagine the energy after that class was fantastic. People who
have been studying together for 7 months or for 18 months said that this was the first time that got to know their fellow students. And they felt safe to expose their most deeply held fears. The way they spoke about their experiences: the impact of a father's deep depression, or how almost getting killed in a mugging taught them the value of friendship; why a dedicated doctor felt he had to leave medicine when, at 27, he almost died of tuberculosis or how moving the birth of ones child can be.

I will spare you all the exciting and different ways in which the program
progressed. I hardly lectured. I abandoned the lecture notes I was given and set about to help prepare students to deliver lectures themselves. You should have seen the development that occured! And, those who 'volunteered' were the individuals who told me that their learning edge is in communicating powerfully in large groups.

Fast forward to the 4th class (of 8). I was looking in the school library
for suitable videos to enliven the class. Among an extensive range I came across your video! I looked at it and thought that it would be a fitting piece for the end of the session.

We played it. People loved it. They asked me to play it again at the
begining of the next session. Out of it, we all became even more
outrageous.

So, from nowhere and without resources or experience we organised, in 3 days, a live link up with the World Bank in Washington to have a session on Ethics and Corporate Integrity with their Experts! And the technology worked without the hitch. We even had a corporate sponsor to cover the costs. Students organised the welcome and some of the Alumni of the school managed to come even at such short notice.

At our last class I announced that I expected each student to send me
their report and marks(grade), with an explanation of the reason for giving it to themselves. In the end, I had to go back to 6 students and to ask them to reconsider. Three had been too harsh on themselves and three were too lenient. This later group were all LatinAmerican students on exchange.

I enclose for you their unsolicited comments about the course that came with their self assessments. In addition, two students
undertook to do a Report on the application of the Art of Possibility. I
send you those as well.

The MBA finished in December. One of the graduates is going to spend a term at Columbia University and was in London this last week. We met at the Royal Festival Hall on tuesday and, since I wanted to give her a copy of your book as a present so that she can have it signed by you, I went to the bookshop in the foyer! No Luck! We walked to Charring Cross, got the last two copies from Waterstones and they are, along with my own well used paperback (acquired in US last October), ready for me to bring in on Sunday.

I am bringing my husband, sister and her boyfriend to your concert. We are all very excited about it. I only hope I will find two more copies of the
book for my daughter (18 and just started her studies) and my niece (doing her Masters in Italy).

Please excuse this effusion! I am well aware that this is a very dry missive compared to the wonderfully expressive artistic ones. Scientific training and an analytical mind take a long time to get over.

My own Big Possibility is to Transform the World of Organisations so that my daughter and niece do not have to go through the same high stress life we have and are still enduring. I am passionate about it and totally open as to the methods and approaches used.

With best wishes

Lilly Evans

(To read the reports written by two students in the Advanced Leadership Program at he Graduate School of Business in Capetown, South Africa, go to Ben's Correspondence page, under Art of Possibility)
RE:The Art of Possibility in action
submitted: 2/2/2003 11:27 AM
by: office@benjaminzander.com
Dear Lilly,

It was great to see you in the front row at the Royal Festival Hall. What an amazing experience, wasn't it? I of course had no idea about the whole background to your presence there - it is truly inspiring to read the whole story. What an engine for possibility you are!!

Love

Ben
Message to Ben
submitted: 1/28/2003 10:42 AM
by: lilly3653@aol.com
Dear Mr Zander,

After following up the articles about your work, using your video at my
classes and reading your book, listening to you this morning on BBC Radio 4 was almost familiar! And it was really exciting, as I have yesterday got the tickets for my whole family for your forthcoming concert at RFT on Sunday! As moments of synchronicity go, I was there to meet with Ariella, one of my MBA students from Cape Town where your video and application of practices had such an enormous impact!

Incidentally, I wanted to buy for her a copy of the Art of Possibilty book as
she was bound for New York and Columbia University, so a life full of
possibilities. It turns out that Books etc shop at the RFH does not have any copies- and that is only a few days before the concert. Perhaps you could encourage them to get a reasonable stock for Sunday!
I just wanted to let all those who would like to hear you that a somewhat
shorter version of the program is broadcast again tonight at 9.30pm GMT and that both can be also heard on the web at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/midweek.shtml.

In high anticipation of a very special event

Lilly Evans

On Marc Chagall's WHITE CRICIFIXION painting

chagall-white_crucifixion
Originally uploaded by flamelily

Described as one of the most shocking paintings both because of the theme painted by a Jewish artist and the time it was painted (1938).

He was living in Paris at the time and could see no way out. He includes lots of contemporary invocations of what has been going on at the time to Jews in Germany.

The question is how does on depict suffering in art in a way that would touch people?

Part of the story of this painting is that the images flying off the edge are suffering as the result of the figure in the middle -Christ. All over there are outstretched arms, not just Jesus but also other figures indicating sense of helplessness. Yet, the Jacobs Ladder is there as a symbol of hope and humanism as is a Jew with a Torah.

How wonderful to stumble on such a great piece of art unexpectedly in a TV slot on Faith.

And for those who like this painting so much that they wish to have it on their iPhone or as a computer wallpaper, just follow instructions.

To Twitter or not to Twitter

I have been following and contributing increasingly to twitter in the last couple of weeks. The question is why?

Partly because it makes me feel I am involved with the lives of lots of different people though I am physically sitting at one of my desks at home! It certainly is in part helping me make new and unexpected contacts and I like that.

Another reason for using Twitter is that some of those that I follow are people I respect so it kind of indicates there must be something in it. People as diverse as Jay Rosen, Guy Kawasaki, David Gurteen, Stacey Monks,and another 160 or so.

I will review this effort in a week and see where it goes.

In the meantime, please start following me.

Net-Map Toolbox-Mapping together, Posted on March 18, 2008 by Eva Schiffer

(Quoting from above blog)
Below I have explored the idea of using Net-Map (through two computer applications called Visualyzer and GoToMeeting) in real time with groups all over the world online. While looking at ways how people can think together online, I came across this very instructive post about Online Graphic Organizers by Miguel Guhlin. He explores different free programs for drawing Mind Maps via the internet. Mind Maps are (mostly) not social networks (as in: actors connected by links) but rather networks of issues or ideas where a central idea is connected to branches of sub-ideas or sub-issues. I had a look at one application that he proposes called bubbl.us and it looks very useful.

Update: If you want to know it all, look at Vic Gee’s comment below and check out Vic’s comprehensive overview of tools for mind-mapping on-line and off-line.

Nike's Efforts to Empower Young Girls

While looking for inputs regarding action about alleviating poverty around the world, I came across the talk Social Innovation Conversations: Maria Eitel.

Beyond general interest, main lesson for me is that maturity is essential where there is the need for those who are involved in making things happen. She also emphasised that MONEY IS NOT THE PROBLEM, THE WILL IS THE PROBLEM!

Measuring now: Impact and Analysis with MIT Poverty Reduction Group! However, Google search has not yielded useful link about it, so I will have to continue looking.

Social Enterprise in UK - UnLtd site

An exciting and unexpected find UnLtd site - came via a two step hop from FT article "Make yourself happy to help" via following the link about Carmel McConnell about the charity she founded Magic Breakfast . Incidentally, and extended version of the article is available at on Ecademy together with a free and full length podcast interview with Carmel McConnell .

The excitement comes from the fact that there is a large repository of social action type undertakings with information on the Starpeople, winners of Millenium Commission awards. Moreover, there is a thriving UnLtd's ideas bank which "allows you to post, share and discuss UK- related social ideas."

Here is a list of some of the ideas obtained when I searched pages from UnLtd Ideas Bank for poverty:

UnLtd Ideas Bank: Idea - Fair Tax and Wage for Workers - The Alpha ...
The need to create incentives to work by reducing the poverty and hardship of minimum wage jobs within a sustainable economic model. ...
Fair Tax and Wage for Workers - 17k

UnLtd Ideas Bank: Idea - I'm An Investment Banker Get Me Out Of ...
Outside of the UK, business and trade is far more important to long as term poverty reduction than charity. I think there is scope for this idea and that there ...
I'm An Investment Banker Get Me Out- 15k

UnLtd Ideas Bank: Idea - Scheme to promote lifelong learning in ...
... for these resources to be shared, the technology that can be derived from areas such as space science can be used to end third world debt and poverty. ...
Scheme to promote lifelong learning - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

UnLtd Ideas Bank: Idea - One percent to change the world
The Problem. Poverty, cancer, child abuse, housing... The choice is yours. The Social Invention. What difference does 1% of your income make to you? ...
One percent to change the world - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

Charlie Leadbeater interview

In the light of the recent publication of his We-Think the book, I thought it worth revisiting the above interview I made with Charlie as part of the Assignment Zero crowdsourcing experiment. He said then:

"There is a huge growth in what we might call Pop Idol models: companies trying to draw on a wider talent base but to feed an essential unchanged corporate process. There is much potential for collective intelligence in education, health, politics, news and media, cultural production. We’ve only just begun."

In addition, he reflected on the lessons learnt from the process of writing a book with wider involvement of others on Wikia.
He is also interviewed in the Spectator Charlie does surf. Meet the new wizard of the web. :

‘This whole thing that the web is new actually gets it all the wrong way round,’ he says. ‘Actually, it can touch things that are really rather old and that’s when it works best.’

and

‘The web’s potential for good,’ he says, ‘stems from the open, collaborative and even communal culture it inherited from its birthplace in academia and from the counter-culture of the 1960s, combined with pre-industrial ingredients it has resurrected, folk culture and the commons as a shared basis for productive endeavour.’ It is, in other words, ‘a peculiar mixture of the academic, the hippie, the peasant and the geek’.

He introduces term 'Collaborative conservatism' referring to what Cameron and Osborne seem to be doing in UK.

Remains to be seen!

As for the We-Think book, enjoy the introductory video!


Finally, ten years ago Charlie Leadbeater wrote a monograph for Demos entitled The Rise of Social Enterpreneur. He reflects in the Observer on the developments and lessons learnt in Mainstreaming the Mavericks .

"The practice we should use daily is listening"

I could not resist this article:

Rebels with a cause | BP Magazine | bp.com

So unlikely from a large multinational I know so well to celebrate individuality and diversity. And then to use my nom de plum as well. Looks like I have left a lasting mark there after all!

But seriously, what is all this about?
" Seeing both sides. Four people describe life working on both sides of the oil and non-governmental organisation fence"

Could there be a link with 'social business' here too? Let me read the actual article and see. Here are some interesting quotes:

"It is society that gains, he says, by open dialogue and people seeking solutions."
(a former senior BP executive now heading WWF in Australia)

"She says the oil sector needs more practitioners who better understand the methodology of community development, while the development sector needs to come down from its moral high ground and accept that it will not be able to make the change it seeks without engaging with industry. “
(a global community relations coordinator at BP formerly a 'green economist' at WWF in Pakistan)


“I only found one important difference. For a social NGO, the immediate motivation is to create a better life for people, via education, housing etc. For the industry, the social model seeks to facilitate operations, make them viable and to leave a legacy."
“What really moved me was the possibility to raise the importance of social matters in the organisation, and to go from thinking to doing,” he continues. “Given BP’s evident leadership, it was possible to interact with community representatives to influence the structure and formulation of local and regional development plans. I found a denser field of action, where focua and permanent action leads to more palpable results."

He says communicating is fundamental in this field and to overall BP success, and corporations could do more of it.
“The practise we should use daily is listening,” he says. “At the same time,
NGOs have to get to know the corporate world better, how it works and its priorities, and could also make good use of corporate goal, measurement and risk assessment systems.”
Corporations like those systems and results, of course, but social development programmes are never ‘complete’.

“After more than 15 years, someone might say ‘it’s all done,’ and that would not be right,” he says. “Communities change, overcome the lack of one thing and feel the absence of another; children become adults with responsibilities and, since they are BP’s neighbours, they also adopt positions regarding what we do; politicians pressurise companies to get involved in their purposes. This all translates as history repeating itself, with new challenges and achievements, new actors and audiences.”
(a BP Columbian community affairs group member formerly at a leading NGO focusing on education, housing and disaster relief)

What, if any, links exist here with Muhammad Yunus? My immediate reaction is that quite a number of observations above bring out pointers for the direction of Yunus related work.

1. It is essential to engage both sides of the argument around 'for profit' and 'social business' in an open dialogue with people seeking solutions.

2. Recognise that systems and measurements in different spheres of business may have to be different yet discipline they impose is necessary in both.

3. Boundary-crossing activities and programs require people who have
successfully crossed those boundaries themselves.

4. At times of change nobody is always right. A healthy dose of humility coupled
with the daily practice of listening is essential.

5. People who work in large organisations are as likely to be committed to
creating a better world as any of us.

6. Find a former corporate senior executive to lead YunusUK and encourage the
practice of making it happen through operational delivery discipline.

7. Discover 'rebels with a cause' inside large companies and engage them as the
future Yunus ambassadors.

This should be a rich basis of a conversation with Tomorrow's Company team http://www.tomorrowscompany.com/.

Prof Mohammad Yunus lecture in London

I am involved in organising the lecture in St James Church on Piccadilly on Saturday 16th February. These are the photos taken on location of the posters and leaflets.

It all now looks totally real. The only thing is now making it happen with full house of 700 people.

Brad de Long on importance of economic history

What a great idea - instead of the morning blog, speak to your Mac, get Macspeech to transcribe it and hey presto - your favorite topic of the day is ready for viewing and reading.

Now, this particular topic has definitely got my attantion. I fully endorse the move to get students and practitioners of different disciplines to appreciate each others contribution to a chosen topic. This time he argued for closer collaboration and deeper links between historians and economists.

Of course, this is critically true for many other disciplines. It would be interesting to explore which other academic fields might be similarly enriched by cross-fertilisation.

Davos 2008 - Opening Plenary with all the Co-Chairs

The Annual World Economic Forum has started in Davos today. As far as the openings go, this is not a bad one.

why does it take so long for business school academics to recognise what happens in reality?

It really takes so long to see something talked about in business school literature though you have actually experienced it in practice. The article above talks about middle managers as sources of ideas and innovation in organisations. Well, hallelujah!

'The unsung heros' is very apt here but for so many large companies that have followed guru prescriptions in the last 15 years about thinning the middle, this is scant relief! Not to mention the waste layed of the lives of those middle managers who have been unceremoniously 'outsourced', 'let go', 'made redundant', 'let go', 'given eary retirement' or whatever euphemism one may wish to use.

This seems to me to only confirm exactly what last week FT article by Michael Skapinker argued.

TED Talks - Isabel Allende: Tales of Passion

At the start of New 2008 Year, I have been really uplifted by a wonderful and truly felt talk Isabel Allende gave at TED2007. She is passionate but not preaching, she tells stories about real people, has lovely sense of humour and twinkle in her eye that betrays sense of fun but above all she is deeply passionate about making the lot of women around the world not only better but GOOD!

So, please click on the link nd do yourself a favour - watch and listen to a woman who can just reawaken your passion for life! May it be the start of inspiration for your path this year and in the many years to come.

Oh, and not to forget, she has some wonderful asides about Sophia Loren and her beauty tips for staying young even when you are over 70!