Ben Hughes: Working with charity leaders
I have a keen interest in organisations, the teams that form them and the individuals that manage them. As with all human interaction, organisations are dynamic and operate within a fast changing environment. With shifts in funding & resourcing, growing operational complexity and accelerating user needs, demands pile up. Holding things together and containing inevitable organisational pressures can be isolating, de-motivating and highly stressful. Having regular space to reflect, think and plan is vital to professional – and personal – wellbeing, and to (re)energising your curiosity, creativity and motivation.
In working with you, I draw on the holistic approaches of whole systems practice, concepts such as the Tavistock working group model, and Bion’s basic assumption theory that informed it. Mainly though, my approach is informed by my direct experience gained in a variety of (sometimes challenging, always interesting!) charity management and leadership roles – in effect a ‘sense checker’ for all my work. I apply this to: