Workshop Outlines

Thinking For Themselves (But Not By Themselves): Staff Mentoring and Autonomy

Mentors play a significant role in guiding mentees towards greater autonomy in their working lives. This workshop focuses on autonomous self-assessment, and how it relates to group membership: membership of a profession, and membership of a company. We’ll examine Thomas Green’s concept of the professional ‘conscience’, which speaks with several 'voices', each relating to a different form of self-assessment. In particular, we’ll learn about:

• the 'conscience of craft': the sense that a piece of work is or is not 'done properly',

• the 'conscience of membership': the sense that you are acting in accordance with the norms and practices of the group.

We’ll discuss the mentor's role in promoting the development of these two ‘voices of conscience’ in their mentees, and guiding them when the voices aren’t speaking in harmony.

How (Not) to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

Holmes represents a particular archetype of intelligence: highly intellectually independent, narrowly specialized in his chosen area, lacking ‘patience for fools’, and therefore brash in his manner of speech: and yet, deferred to by the people he works for. This workshop explores how these qualities can become problematic for individuals and for corporations, and how they can be counterbalanced.

We will:

• Analyze one of Holmes’ ‘deductions’, and generate alternative explanations,

• Learn about rhetoric and epistemic injustice: why we might give someone's argument more (or less) credence than it deserves,

• Explore how Holmes’ attitude to his peers combines with his narrow specialization to make him vulnerable to unknown unknowns.

Why Socrates Hated Writing (As Written by Plato): Communication Preferences and Meaningful Compromise

When teams are split in terms of their communication preferences, the problem can be compounded if they struggle to explain the reasons behind those preferences. This workshop is framed by a short extract from Plato, in which Socrates warns of the dangers of written communication: he believed it would degrade our working memories and lead to a false sense of certainty.

We will:

• Discuss the extent to which we believe Socrates’ concerns to be justified (or unjustified),

• Apply these concerns to realistic scenarios from the participants’ workplace.

Beginning with Socrates is effective because the material is novel, but the concerns are relevant to the workplace scenarios. The novelty of the material encourages clearer and more thoughtful responses from participants than they might give to something more familiar. This clarity and thoughtfulness then continues into the discussion of concrete workplace scenarios. Participants are left better able to articulate the underlying reasons behind their communication preferences, and compromises can then be based on those underlying reasons.

To arrange a free introductory call, please contact me below.