LinkedIn post 4 May Is there room for joy in climate action? Anxiety, anger and anguish are often dominant as people face up to the enormity and seriousness of climate change. These are powerful emotions that must be recognised, acknowledged, expressed. But as humans we also need counterbalance.
As Charly Cox and Megan Fraser of Climate Change Coaches point out in their excellent coach training programme, painful emotions like anger and grief can tell us a lot that’s positive about people’s values. Someone experiencing climate grief, for instance, is also expressing their love for what is being destroyed.
Similarly, sorrow can be an expression of lost joy. So I’ve been reflecting on seven ways we can find joy in taking action on the environment: Continue reading
Seven ways to find joy in climate action
Creating excitement about the power of inclusion at work
LinkedIn post, 27 April How do you excite people about the power and potential of inclusion at work? Using everyday analogi
es is helpful. In our book INdivisible, Rebekah Steele and I describe a truly inclusive work environment as being like a well-functioning traffic roundabout or intersection.
Readers have told us this captures their imagination. It’s highlighted in a new review of our book in International Coaching Psychology Review. Describing INdivisible as ‘very timely’, reviewer Claudia Day says it gives many examples that make it easier to grasp all the angles of the topic. ‘I especially like one where they invite us to see inclusion as a roundabout, where everybody pays attention to everyone else, takes turns, and is thoughtful of their actions to be successful as a whole.’ Continue reading
Sustaining motivation in the face of setbacks
LinkedIn post 13 April Are you a change-maker? Do you get disheartened when progress is slow, when you see hard-won gains reversed, when the path ahead is blocked?
Setbacks can be tough to bear, especially tackling urgent challenges like climate change, racial equity and women’s rights. But progress does not follow a straight line, it takes 
many paths, some circuitous.
I’ve been reflecting on change-making, and acknowledging the wisdom of the past and future, since reading Ijeoma Oluo’s excellent book So you want to talk about race.
Oluo describes how it’s both inspiring and disconcerting when young people call for things that older generations of change-makers were brainwashed into believing were ‘too much to ask’. Continue reading
Podcast: Radically rethinking inclusion
30 March As part of Workplace Forum 2021, my co-author Rebekah Steele and I were interviewed by Ben Rue for this podcast on overcoming barriers to inclusion with a bold new approach. Drawing on our book INdivisible, we discussed:
- Our expansive vision of inclusion to address global challenges
- How inclusion helps Performance, Preparedness and Purpose
- Moving beyond ‘belonging’ to the 10 enablers of inclusion
- Measuring the business impact of inclusion
- How to take account of people’s whole identities, and much more
What are you and your organisation doing to advance sustainable results with inclusion?
What do we need from ourselves to bring ease to others?
LinkedIn post 23 March 2021. I was sent a gift last weekend. A link to a raw but uplifting poem for our times: ‘For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing’ by John O’Donohue.
It describes how we can lose our sense of self and the choices we have as we travel fast through life. Although published in 2008, it seems to capture how many people are feeling right now – exhausted through overwork, lack of work, anxiety, grief.
The poet tenderly offers a path to recovery, reconnecting with ‘small miracles’ of nature, discovering space where there seems to be none. Continue reading
Embarking on climate change coaching
LinkedIn post, 16 March 2021 What changes have you made over this past difficult year? What’s precipitated those shifts?
Last May I attended my first online coaching conference as UK ICF responded to the ‘New Reality’. I heard Charly Cox, Climate Change Coach, FRSA speak about how many of us feel powerless in the face of this existential threat, and how coaching can help people shift from fear and uncertainty to action.
It was inspiring. As a non-expert, I’ve been reflecting on what more I can do to help ensure future generations enjoy a planet that’s in balance. I’ve just embarked on Climate Change Coaches training programme to learn how to apply my coaching practices to this biggest of all challenges. Continue reading
Getting to equity: time to celebrate or worry?
8 March 2021 By Alison Maitland
It’s apt that this year’s International Women’s Day theme is #ChooseToChallenge. Even though there are some milestones to celebrate, the journey towards gender and other forms of equity faces troublesome obstacles and there is plenty ahead to challenge. I see two big threats to hard-won progress, one driven by the economic and social fallout of Covid-19, the other by prejudice and ignorance. Continue reading
What’s your intention for 2021?
By Alison Maitland, 11 January 2021
Did you make a New Year’s resolution? Have you managed to stick to it?
If it’s already seeming like hard work, you’re not alone. Studies indicate that resolutions are often broken and that they’re an ineffective way to make changes in your life.
This year it’s likely to be more challenging than ever to kick bad habits and start new ones. There’s a bumpy road ahead, with the ongoing pandemic, rapidly rising unemployment and societal disruption. Thankfully the mass vaccination programme is rolling out. But uncertainty rules, making it hard to plan.
Rather than a resolution, a better way to move forward positively is to set an intention connected to your values. Continue reading
Racism and ‘allyship’
16 Nov 2020 By Alison Maitland
ALONGSIDE the Covid-19 crisis, the police killing of George Floyd and the resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the US and many other countries have been defining events of 2020.
They have focused attention on the persistence and the price of racial inequity, something that each of us has a responsibility to acknowledge and address.
Like many other white people, I’ve been listening, reading, watching and taking part in discussions about race over recent months with a heightened awareness that, individually and collectively, we must do more. While it’s a continuing process, here are some lessons I’ve learned that I’d like to share.
‘Not knowing’ has consequences Continue reading
Inclusion in the new era of work
13 Sept 2020 By Alison Maitland
BY MOST ACCOUNTS, we are moving into a new era of work. For those who typically worked in an office, the Covid-19 crisis has tipped the balance decisively in favour of workplace flexibility.
The knowledge workforce of the future looks set to be much more ‘distributed’ – located partly in offices, partly at home, and partly in other places.
How can leaders and managers take inclusive action to get the best from all their people in this fast-changing environment? Continue reading