A colleague asked me at a cocktail party, “What do I get out of writing my blog?” and I thought that’s a great question.

Every week, I come up with another idea to write about and I do it for free. Sometimes, the thoughts just flow – and other times … not so much.

So, what keeps me writing after 3 ½ years?

It’s because I feel that the world is becoming such an adversarial place where the tendency is to point fingers in blame and to take sides. People seem to be more exclusionary than inclusionary and this creates many parallel lines – not ones that intersect.

That’s what keep me writing.

My blog keeps me grounded in the principles of conflict resolution that can be incorporated each and every day into my own life and hopefully into those of my readers as well. Getting drawn into adversarial situations can happen quickly, however, if you are aware and keep your antenna on high alert, you can avoid or mitigate escalating situations and perhaps avoid negative outcomes.

Promoting collaboration is also an important aspect of my work.

That’s why I order and read books and scan the internet for interesting conflict resolution perspectives.

My most recent discovery is a book entitled “The Art of Leading Collectively” written by Petra Kuenkel. Its focus is how to train leaders to lead based on a collective, not individual, approach. The author developed the “Collective Leadership Compass” which contains 6 components:

• Future possibilities
• Engagement
• Innovation
• Humanity
• Collective Intelligence
• Wholeness

Although the book is written with social and sustainability issues in mind, I believe that it includes aspects that ANY leader could benefit from. So, I am devoting the next 6 blog posts to each component to understand it better.

I hope you will join me on this posting journey.

Jeanette