Leadership in Crisis or Crisis in Leadership?

For the fifth year Pentacle has continued to support the African Leadership Institute.  It is AfLI’s belief that without good leadership across the various levels and sectors of the continent, all the other excellent initiatives in Africa will be stifled. Investment in good leadership thus has an enormous return in terms of future social, economic, political, technological and environmental benefits.  Eddie Obeng has now worked with over a hundred future leaders on the ALI flagship Programme the Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme.  This year's course was directed by Peter Wilson, Sean Lance and Lord Hacking.  Seeds of New World Leadership thinking have been planted in the fertile soils of Senegal Burundi, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya, Madagascar, Angola & Liberia  

Let's Talk Again - Welcome to the World After Midnight Version 2.0

Have you ever experienced that moment, when the drawing of the old witch transforms into a young lady? Or stared at a Magic Eye picture of coloured dots to suddenly see a butterfly emerge? Or that moment in the film The Matrix when Neo sees the data that makes the world in zeros and ones?

The next nine minutes will transform how you see the business and economic world around you. Things will never be quite the same again.

Welcome to the New World After Midnight....

NOTE: You can download a version from http://worldaftermidnight.com/

Leading Others to Make Practical CHANGE in the Team and Organisation

Eddie Obeng and Robert Hewins have been working on an informal Pentacle survey of over a thousand  managers and executives to find out what they feel their key learning needs are.  The result was this  wordle

Eddie for President - But don't tell him...

There was a strange result in the Pentacle LinkedIn home page - It seems that people viewing Eddie Obeng's profile had him mixed up with someone else....

Redesigning Business for the 21st Century

Pentacle has actively been developing and communicating a rethink of how businesses can work and succeed in these volatile times. To overcome the waste and inefficiencies which large companies face on a daily basis, Robert Hewins has developed the SpinCasting^TM Programme. Through effective, disciplined communication between and within virtual teams, SpinCasting^TM saves global businesses millions through dramatically improved management and workforce productivity, lowered travel costs and improved project delivery. With SpinCasting^TM concepts, methods and supporting technology, the end finally is in sight for dead-end video and conference calls with low active participation, short attention span and distractions such as email. Eddie Obeng has been sharing this New World approach with delegates at the Economist Big Rethink Summit more...

Inspiration Monthly Schedule for 2010

Designed with issues and materials in mind that link New World principles to the fast-moving events around us, the 4th edition of Pentacle's Inspiration Monthlies is brimming with thought-provoking, relevant and pragmatic ways to fulfil our 2010 theme of Finding Possibilities.

Continuing our commitment to Open Source Learning, Pentacle Inspiration Monthlies are open to all, wherever they may be situated.

Inspiration Monthlies run for two hours (18:00 UK - 20:00 UK) on the evening of the THIRD Thursday of each month when you will get a chance to sit around with stimulating people and be provoked, challenged and enlightened by the Pentacle Team.

Be Economical with your Design Re-Thinking

Design was put firmly at centre stage in the strategic direction of business at the Economist Big Rethink - Redesigning Business Summit. The Summit Conference which was closed by Sir George Cox and Robin Bew saw contributions from leading thinkers and practitioners such as Jonathan Sands of Elmwood - who explained how Elmwood had embraced and understood the opportunities in the BRICs, about how design and branding had turned 'Muck into Brass' at Serious* and left us laughing at his alpacas, Joe Ferry of Virgin - who drew a strong link between design and financial return and concluded with a picture of a goose and golden egg. Joe forgot to mention that Virgin provide the most comfortable and effectvie earplugs of any long haul carrier! Paul Bennett of IDEO made the audience rethink the 'purpose' of their businesses. And there were many others. There was an Innovation Masterclass by Professor Eddie Obeng and Friends from the Design Council , and what brilliant friends they were. Richard Seymour of Seymour Powell explained the true essence of design, David Kester CEO of the Design Council used the iconic Design Bugs Out! project to explain how design could transform the public sector and Bonnie Dean used her vast experience of commercialising design and examples of new market opportunities which arose from Designing Out Crime in the mobile telephony sector to show how design could create and drive new markets.




The audience and Economist Bloggers warmed to the key models, Old World vs New World, The SparqTM map of innovation, the Double Diamond which resolves the New World issue of problem defintition and the Design council Safe Space as a way of bringing together many different interests skills and ideas quickly to deliver surprisingly good, amplified results.

The Leader is a Black Horse called Resilience

The National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham was the venue for a fast paced journey into exploring Leading with Personal resilience.

Professor Eddie Obeng led five hundred managers from Lloyds Banking Group Retail through a fast paced gallop which took in all the key aspects of how to maintain Personal Resilience in the face of complex and significant changes.

Moving from Opportunities to Possibilites...

Late in 2008, at Pentacle, we realised that around the globe the industrial/ post , industrial 'nomadic, hunter-gatherer' phase was officially over. Senior executives were starting to recognise that they couldn't identify opportunities for growth. In fact they were finding it hard to identify any opportunities at all. We launched the World After Midnight podcast to try to help them to realise that this was to be expected and in fact they had prolonged the hunter-gather illusion through two decades of M&A and Financial Black Magic which had now largely unravelled. For 2010 we are planning to help our clients move onto to the modern 'next phase' of thinking and acting. We have celebrated the start of the decade with two messages.

The first is a computer created composite from Christophe Gillet which we turned into a new year card which explains simply the two mindsets when applied to markets. You can download a copy to send to your boss or colleagues here. Then we had Susan Obeng's painting, in the style of Matisse, titled IMAGINE A FISH which encourages exploration and innovation. You can download this here. The additional lines to the traditional proverb which explain why, before you can teach a man to fish, you must first IMAGINE A FISH can be found here.

Pentacle Succeeding Through Change Eddie Obeng

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Pentacle Succeeding Through Change Eddie Obeng

View more presentations from Pentacle.

Seeing the Wood and the Trees

Pentacle's own Design-Led Innovation 'Big brain' Colin Burns led this month's Evening Inspiration global mini conference. He took us on a fantastic journey from funky cassette recorders through tiling retailing to closely observing other people eating yoghurt. Along the way we learnt how not to use focus groups, we were taught how to use all five of our FiveEyesTM to observe and discovered that many people were 'secret yoghurt lid lickers.' He made sure that we could access valuable insights by seeing the P.O.I.N.T.TM

If you want to share similar inspiration you should take a look at next year's Third Thursday of the month Inspiration Evenings and perhaps come and join in a couple. You can find out more at http://PentacleTheVBS.com/FootPrint.htm and then perhaps you too can see the wood and the trees!

Where's David Dimbleby?

With the usual Question Time project manger, David Dimbleby otherwise engaged, Professor Darren Dachler had the job of keeping the five panelists in check during the Project Management Question Time at the Association of Project Managers annual conference in London last week. The conference was followed by the APM Awards ceremony featuring the new International Relief and Development prize sponsored by Project Management Today.

The eclectic panel of Nigel Smith CEO of OGC, Mike Nichols & Richard Pharro APM, Mike Rolls Royce and Professor Eddie Obeng who demonstrated the a key project management principle by turning up just-in-time for the first question. The questions ranged from the non-controversial to the controversial. Eddie Obeng did his best to stir-up the panelists and energise the audience with statements such as "I'm not sure it's just about being a profession - when I think of other professions, lawyers, accountants, they leave me cold and everyone hates them. It's all about delivery and building a reputation for taking people with us.  So fare we are content to let 75% of projectsmiss their goals. We should hit 100% then we can be real professionals and give the other professions a run for their money" He was also critical of the standard view and materials on sponsorship which allow most sponsors to see themselves as equivalents of the Queen launching a ship saying "I name this project, Daunting, God bless her and all who read Gantt charts upon her." and then disappearing for nine months only to return to kick the project leader. Perhaps that's why the usual project manager David Dimbleby was missing.

Taking root in the Netherlands

NOW WHAT? was the provocative question posed
last week by Robert Hewins to a select group of business leaders and opinion formers from across the Netherlands. Robert led an Inspiration Event at the world famous De Hortus botanical gardens in Amsterdam. The full title of the event, "Congratulations! You've survived the Meltdown. Now What?", was a theme which led to an interactive set of presentations, discussions and group work on key Pentacle concepts and principles.

David Lomas engaged the audience by demystifying innovation and explaining how to focus and make it happen using the R.A.B.B.I.T model and the participants' perceived challenges over the coming year.

Dave was followed by an energetic and inspiring contribution by Michael Anaman highlighting how to avoid and overcome resistance to change, and Toby Scott polished the session off by explaining how to think through business cases fast, using GapLeap.

The ideas planted have already taken root from the feedback and responses of the participants after the event...

The evening was capped by a guided tour through the botanical gardens, which were founded in 1638 -- the year after the collapse of the infamous Tulip bubble. Combined with 2009 being the year of Darwin and the recognition of Evolution, the Inspiration Event and its venue could not have been more timely in echoing the NewWorld strategic mantra of Evolve, Dominate or Die.

NOW WHAT? EVOLVE!

The Sparq of Design lights the UK Civil Service

David Kester, Richard Seymour, Susan Osbourne C.B.E. and Professor Eddie Obeng led a higly challenging and dynamic session for leading Civil Servants. The session sponsored and organised by Phil Rycroft of BIS (Department for Business Innovation and Skills) showcased Design-led Innovation using the "Design Bugs Out!" demonstration project which significantly impacted the infection rates of MRSA and C. Difficile in a target hospital. Eddie used the R.A.B.B.I.T. model to set the context and explained how the four types of innovation Sparq - (Push vs Pull, Human vs Technology - are best executed). David established the role of the Design Council in enabling the process and providing safe spaces for Open Innovation, Richard explained how design could help in process innovation and Susan provided a 20:20 vision from the user's perspective.

The country's top 200 civil servants participated actively making the session releveant, practical and useful. David Lomas made it memorable by creating a 'Book' of concepts as a follow-up memory jogger.

Ascending to the Start

Exactly a year ago Eddie Obeng had the chance to work with the participants of the innovative ASCEND programme On that occasion he was speaking of the NewWorld as the financial system shuddered and ground to a halt. Now one year on, the Programme aimed at Talented Women in Johnson and Johnson, and co-directed by Liz de Wet, moves on strongly. As always, the build up is a team effort. Christophe Gillet runs the first leg of the NewWorld aspects of the programme spending a module working with the participants in detail on how the new world creates opportunities and possibilities for their businesses. Eddie then rounds this of with the session involving the participants line managers...