Restoring the world as a strange place of wonder

Have you ever entered a meeting and instantly been set up to fail? Do organizations really want to change or just be seen to change? 

Consultants also get stuck in this game where they want to bring in more play and creativity and the organization thinks they should change but won’t.

This is a challenge that Steve Chapman has encountered many times and has to overcome “vanilla compromises” that leads to no change. 

He does this through compassion and care, improvisation and subtle tactics like changing the space used. 

Steve is an artist, writer, and speaker interested in creativity and the human condition. He's spoken around the world on the subject of creativity and culture and worked with over 80 organizations in many sectors to help free them from ever tightening loops of common sense.

He holds an MSC with distinction in organization's culture and change, and has held roles of visiting faculty on a number of MSC programs at Ashridge Business School, the Meno Institute, and Ruffy Park as an artist. He sold his work across seven continents, exhibited alongside the lights of Pablo Picasso and David Trigg, and has held a number of successful solo exhibitions in Central London, Hampshire.

Things to consider

• What is the difference between work and life?
• How do we get paid more for the things that feel like play?
• Can compromise lead to something that makes no difference
• Nietzche sums it up for Steve, “learning to see the world as strange makes us un home in the everyday and thereby restores it as a potential place of wonder.”
• Learn to see the world as strange. 
• Ask curious questions.

Links

• Escape from Freedom, Erich Fromm
• Barry Mason, Safe Uncertainty
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice, Shunryu Suzuki
• The (Not A) Lost Cat Project
• Sound of Silence Podcast
• Arny Mendell
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace, Gordon MacKenzie
• Can Scorpions Smoke