Mark McKergow has a new article out in Developing Leaders Quarterly. Lead as a connector, not a constrainer is a new piece on how connecting people helps them, the leader and the organisation, while failing to do so simply constrains all kinds of things from happening.
The lastest issue of Developing Leaders Quarterly has a focus on ecosystemic leadership. Subscribe here to get the whole pocket-sized magazine packed with interesting articles.
Our great friend and long-term colleague Mike Brent of Hult Ashridge business school is a great enthusiast for Host Leadership and includes it in his work and teaching. We’re very excited to report that Mike’s latest book When Teams Work: How to develop and lead a high performing team, has been Highly Commended in the People. Culture and Management category at the Business Book Of The Year awards in London recently.
Mike Brent and Fiona Dent on stage at the Business Book Awards
Mike wrote the book with his colleague Fiona Elsa Dent and England rugby star Nigel Melville. Mike says that he’s been invited before and never wins anything, so this time he had no speech prepared and had to improvise! It all went very well.
Mike Brent with his award-winning book and the award
The book has proved to be a best-seller around the world. Mike introduces the idea of leading as a host right up-front, with the six roles of a host leader taking a central position. We are very excited that lots more people around the world are discovering Host Leadership! Thanks Mike, Fiona and Nigel.
There is a rare opportunity coming up to work with Host author Mark McKergow in his online four-part workshop Hosting Generative Change. The material is built on Mark’s 2020 book of the same name, published by the Bushe Marshak Institute.
The course follows the idea of supporting generative dialogues and conversations – new perspectives, new ideas, with as much listening as talking. The way into these dialogues is hosting: the way we bring people together has a huge impact on what happens. In this course Host author Dr Mark McKergow will work with you to help you host dialogues, people and organisations in ways which underpin, not overshadow, this fascinating, delicate, and essentially human practice.
The programme is based around learning and applying some key frameworks to a real-life organisational development challenge or project. The modules will be varied, each one featuring input, discussion, application and reflection. The group will form a learning community with everyone both learning and contributing. Dr. Mark McKergow has been leading online courses for over a decade and is looking forward to working with you.
Online on four Tuesdays: March 21 and 28, April 4 and 11 2023. Sessions will run from 1pm-5pm UK time (14h-18h CET, also good for Asia and USA). Registration is €490 for the whole course (+ VAT if applicable).
Mark McKergow has started a new writing project on Substack. He’s building on his work in Host Leadership, Solutions Focus and Village In The City to explore how we might organise both humanely AND effectively.
It’s easy to see how to be humane and ineffective. It’s even easier to see how to be effective and inhumane. But how to combine both?
Mark’s career has been exploring this question from various angles in learning, coaching, organisational change and community development. Now he’s building on his 30 years of experience to put this work together in new ways, explore the gaps, look at unanswered questions and try to be as clear as possible.
NEWS: I’m very excited that the 2023 Host Leadership Gathering is going ahead face-to-face in Vienna, Austria on 12-13 June. We’d love to see you, get your proposals for a workshop/topic and have you join us there. Two days full of inspiration .
By the way… the excellent SOLWorld international conference is happening in the same venue just before our gathering, on 8-10 June 2023. You may well be interested to join both events – many people are! More information on SOLWorld 2023 at https://www.solworld2023.at/.
Dialogic OD is about creating generative dialogue and conversation – new perspectives, new ideas, with as much listening as talking. The way into these dialogues is hosting: the way we bring people together has a huge impact on what happens. In this course Host author Dr Mark McKergow will work with you to help you host dialogues, people and organisations in ways which underpin, not overshadow, this fascinating, delicate, and essentially human practice.
Four online sessions on 1, 3, 8 and 15 November at 4pm UK time ( 17h CET, 11am EST, 8am Pacific)
The full programme for the Host Leadership Gathering 2022 is now online. It looks great – there are 12 excellent workshops from around the world including presenters from education (in Australia) and healthcare (in the British NHS) and multinational FMCG (“the beer that reaches the parts others can’t”) contexts. There are also top leadership development, coaching and agile professionals sharing their experience.
Host author Dr Mark McKergow will start the event with a keynote exploring ‘Host Leadership in the age of the strongman’. There will also be an Open Space session for you to bring along your ideas, challenges and questions. If you are keen to learn more and use Host Leadership in your work, this is the place to be,
We had hoped to offer an in-person option but that is not possible. So, the event is online only. You can participate from the comfort of your own place anywhere in the world. And you will have exclusive access to recordings of all the sessions!
We are very excited to announce that there will be a Host Leadership Gathering in 2022! We are hoping to gather in Milan, Italy on 26-27 May 2022 – and there will also definitely be an option to join online.
The theme of the event is ‘Building A Host Leadership Practitioner Circle’. Some of our longest-standing practitioners will be there to share their work. If you would like to make Host Leadership a key part of your own practice – as a leader, as a consultant or as a coach – then this is the moment to step forward and come to join in.
There is already a strong list of workshops on the menu, and we are seeking your proposals for sessions too (by Friday 18 February please). Presenters include Mark McKergow (UK), Veronika Jungwirth and Dr Ralph Miarka (Austria), Rolf Katzenberger (Germany), Dr Leah Davcheva (Bulgaria), Mike Brent (UK/France), Jason Pascoe (Australia) and Pierluigi Pugliese (Italy/Germany). You can see the current menu at https://connexxo.com/events/host-leadership-gathering-2022/.
The event is being hosted by our friends Pierluigi Pugliese and Katrin Seger of Connexxo. Registration is just €99 which guarantees online participation. As the travel situation comes clear, there will be an option to join in person if you can.
Come and join us – expand your practice, join our practitioner circle as it forms, and meet some great people!
A new podcast about hosting has been released by Harpal Dhatt, the ‘Kindness Chef’. Harpal is interested in how to build kindness and has been going through the alphabet seeking different people to talk to about how we can make kindness more of a part of our own lives, and of those around us. Harpal introduces the episode:
Inclusion recipe – Welcoming a stranger – Sitting with Dr Mark McKergow
I sit with Dr Mark Mckergow to talk about his work over three decades, has been about humanising organisations in learning, changing and leading. He is the co-author of six books including The Solutions Focus and Host: Six new roles of engagement.
We talk about the old Arabic proverb, “the host is both the first and the last: first to arrive and last to leave” and how this applies to leading. This idea of host fits perfectly with kindness.
I wanted to encourage people to be kindness hosts.
Some of you may already be doing this. The idea of a host stepping forward and stepping back when necessary and creating the conditions for guests to feel comfortable.
One way to do this, is to explore how you welcome people. We create a recipe for how to welcome a stranger.
Practical ways that you can observe and pay attention and help someone in a moment of need.
One of his latest ideas combining his experiences is The Village In The City as a post-COVID initiative to encourage people to build on the micro-local communities which emerged during the pandemic.
As a response to the local connections which appeared in his own street during the pandemic. Neighbours talked, email and Whatsapp groups started, people ran errands for each other and even entertained one another from their front steps.
He thought that it would be good to build on this connection, by moving up a level from the street to the ‘village’.
Using his background as an organisational and leadership consultant, Mark devised the Village In The City Manifesto to set out the benefits and building blocks for connection.
Exciting news! Mark McKergow’s new online course for OD professionals, facilitators, consultants, and indeed anyone wanting to bring people together to build innovative and generative change is coming in September!
