It is important to approach the new year with your team – gathering the “human system” around you to delve into what lies beneath and beyond – to a sense of hope, purpose and ambition, and develop a way of working together for the year ahead.

As we embark on a new year, a quarter of the way through the 21^st Century, it’s a natural time to reflect on the past and look ahead to the future.  However, all too often these days the future feels either too scary or confusing to make any plans or even hope.   At Xenergie, we advocate for pressing hard on the button of hope, for without spending more time thinking about the long term, or even the year ahead, we may find ourselves stumbling into the new year looking through the rear-view mirror.

With expectations on governance at an all-time high, it has never been more important for board members to be high performing and tuned in.  Whilst some of the more obvious performance points noted in guidelines for Boards – such as relevant experience, representation, non-competing interests, relatively few board directors are versed in the knowledge of “organisational shadow”, or it is dismissed in the category of "unmeasurable soft stuff". However, it's very measurable when it shows up and causes unwanted events. So how to work with it?

Role Reflection helps leaders to develop a deeper understanding of their impact, their responses and areas for improvement. Above all it is about engaging with oneself as part of a "human system" of interconnected thoughts, processes and actions.

How often have you seen teams working within their “silos” and not really knowing what is happening across the organisation, or in the wider business ecosystem? The American Management Association report that 83% of executives observe silos in their organisations and 97% think it is having a negative impact on performance. So why do teams keep doing it?

All around us are the very real signs that we are in a massive transformation, and people are at different stages of grasping the enormity of it. Gleicher’s Formula for change speaks to the fact that change is possible when people have a clear vision of the future. However, what happens when the future isn’t clear? Or is it that the picture we are being shown is simply too overwhelming?  

Advances in technology and the workplace transition from on-premise to remote, to now a hybrid of the two, promises disruption after disruption, but what does this mean for the organisation of the future? Beyond talk of digital human and driverless cars, how can humans relate to the future? Here are five things to bear in mind as your organisation prepares for future change.

The competitive race for innovation vs our ability to integrate continues to be one of humanity’s greatest dilemmas – many would argue we have not progressed in closing the gap because those who are at the cutting edge lack the patience and empathy for those at the lagging edge and vice versa.