On the way home from work, you decide that you'd like to go out for dinner.
You mention it to your partner, who hasn't thought about it until now but, on reflection, is willing to set aside the evening's plans to join you.
You're in the mood for something spicy - noodles perhaps - but your partner isn't so keen. 'Perhaps pizza?'. But that really isn't what you feel like at all.
And so an hour later you find yourselves in a restaurant that neither of you really wished for. And the mood between you is cooler than the joyful celebration you'd hoped, after the rather unexpected twists and turns of your conversation.
A simple plan to go out to dinner... what could be difficult about that? And yet your plans, upon meeting those of another, turn out to be far from straightforward to bring about in the way you'd imagined.
It would be so easy - predictable - if you didn't have other, self-directing, confusing, unpredictable human beings with their own wishes, intentions, and cares to deal with. And this is why planning for the future is so hard, and our plans in practice so unreliable. It's hard enough to be sure what will happen with one other involved, let alone a hundred, or a thousand, or the millions and billions whose lives impact on our own.
The longer the time period our plans address, and the more people they rely on, the less we can be sure of them. And so we would be wise to relate with lightness and openness to our plans, especially in the complex world of organisational life, and to see that often when we make detailed predictions over long periods of time we're doing so because they settle us and others - because they make us feel better. And that, despite what we tell ourselves, having planned is hardly a guarantee that any of what we imagine will happen will actually come to pass.
[With thanks to Professor Ralph Stacy, whose work inspired this post]
So much difficulty, suffering, and effort would be alleviated if we understood in our organisations that culture is not something we can implement, roll-out, instill, or command. It cannot be programmed nor demanded other than through force, coercion, intimidation and fear (a topic that totalitarian states know about only too well), methods which themselves can produce only rigid, stuttering, repressed cultures that serve only the few.Culture is not a thing, an object, or an entity that has an existence separate from us. We cannot stand on the outside of it, analysing or directing it as if we were not involved. It is born of our participation. It arises from the conversations, promises, commitments, practices and intentions we have towards one another. And it is sustained and created anew in every moment by our acts of relating and responding to those around us - every one of which is either an act of 
What are the habits you have that diminish you?It’s not so difficult to find out what they are. You’ll probably do them automatically, without thinking. They’ll soothe you in some way. And they’ll leave you afterwards with the vaguely queasy feeling of having wasted your time – they’re distracting rather than nourishing, numbing rather than enlivening, they cover up what’s going on rather than have you face it, and they have you turn away from genuine connection with yourself and with other people.A few candidates for you to consider:
I've been reintroduced to Edward de Bono's six '
Parker Palmer 
I've just had the longest unplanned interruption in publishing since I started this writing project over two years ago. My commitment to write and publish every day.... vanished. And there does not seem to be an obvious reason that I can make easy sense of. Nothing significant changed in my schedule and yet, when it came to writing, nothing.I notice how quickly the parts of me that are into comparison and self-criticism can get going in such circumstances. First a vague unease, a sinking feeling, a confusion that gradually shifts into despair. At the heart of all of this a comparison: I should be able to do better than this, I'm letting myself and others down. And an assessment: it's my fault, I'm clearly not dedicated enough.I'm saying this here not because I think there's anything unusual about me - this constant stream of inner comparison with its harshness and its capacity to produce shame seem to be to be shared widely amongst us humans.But there is another part of me, more settled, wiser, with a much more expansive view of time, that says this is a season.It reminds me that I am not a robot, nor a machine, but alive. It reminds me that like all living beings I have summers and winters, autumns and springs - fallow times and generative times, hopeful times and despairing times, sadness and joy, gratitude and frustration, sorrow and love. It reminds me that the seasons of my own life - of all of our lives - are not, largely, under our control.And it reminds me that sometimes, often, the wisest move is to know that seasons come and go all by themselves, and to stop worrying, forcing, or trying to have it be any other way.
Convergent problems are the kind for which diligent, patient and repeated efforts produce answers we can trust. Many problems in mathematics, for example are convergent, as are the vast majority of engineering problems. Such problems are convergent because a suitable methodology and sufficient effort allow us to converge on a single, practical, true answer to the question at hand.Convergent problems lend themselves to solution by technique and process. And once we know what to do with a convergent problem, we can repeat the technique and expect to find a reliable answer, every time.Divergent problems are those for which, with diligent, patient and repeated efforts, we could expect to find many different answers. For example, in sentencing someone who has committed a crime, is justice or mercy more appropriate? Or, in the midst of many competing financial pressures, should we centralise our operation, seizing control of all the details, or should we decentralise, allowing the people with the most local expertise the opportunity to bring their own insights to bear? Is discipline or love more important in learning to do something well? Should we dedicate ourselves to conserving tradition, or supporting change? And in organising a society, is freedom to do what we each want most important, or responsibility to the wellbeing of others?Divergent problems are divergent precisely because it is possible to hold so many different perspectives. The more we inquire - if we are prepared to do so with sincerity and rigour - the more possible responses we discover. And such problems are inherently the problems of living systems in general, and human circumstances in particular - circumstances in which our consciousness, values, commitments, cares and many interpretations enter the fray.Divergent problems do not lend themselves to easy answers, to platitudes, or technique. Instead, divergent problems require us to make a transcendent move, in which we step out of the easy polarities of right or wrong, and good or bad. Such a move, which is clearly a developmental move in the sense that I have described previously, calls to the fore our capacity to live in the middle of polarities and complexity, uncertainty and fluidity. In the case of justice and mercy, this move might well be called wisdom. We run into enormous difficulty whenever we treat divergent problems as if they were convergent - as if there were some reliable process, however complex and sophisticated, by which to arrive at a correct answer. When we do this, we treat human situations as if they were mathematical or machine-like. And we strip ourselves of the possibility of cultivating discernment and genuine wisdom, reducing ourselves to rule-followers and automatons.It can never be justice alone - for strict justice is harsh, and unforgiving, and has no concern for the particulars of a human life. And it can never be mercy alone - for mercy's kindness without justice can be cruel and damaging to many in its wish to take care of the few. And it is never sufficient to say 'well, it must be mercy and justice' as if there were some simple, easy to understand combination or position between the two.And all of this is why paying attention to development 
Have you noticed that there are people around whom things get said that matter?It’s as if their way of being in the world is a huge invitation to speak, to say what’s true. People like this offer us safe ground on which to stand, and space into which to articulate what’s important, without fear of judgement or rejection.They make it possible for us to say what we didn’t know even needed saying, and in the process to discover much about who we are and what we’re up to.You could say that people like this are a disclosive space for others.It is possible to cultivate this way of being over time, if you wish. It takes attending to the discipline of listening, of course. And beyond that it takes working on: