Journal

My journal is a place to express my thoughts about what I do. The entries you see here are prompted by client scenarios or the ideas that inform my work. I hope they may be useful to those who are trying to find out about me or who want stimulus for their own thinking.

Lucy Ball Director of Lucy Ball Consulting

Boundaries: flex or hold?

Your line manager moves a date for an important strategy meeting and it clashes with your son’s driving test, which you promised to take him…

The art of storming well

What is storming? Storming is when differences, disagreements and disappointments surface in a team, often with strong feelings. During a storming phase we might experience ‘car-crash’…

Climate action for organisational leaders

I’ve been privileged to work with University College London’s Climate Action Unit over the last couple of years. These very clever folk have studied all…

Big feelings at work: Collusion vs Co-regulation

There is turmoil in several of my client organisations at the moment. Contextual turmoil is leading to organisational turmoil which is leading to team and…

The Victim’s 5 Gifts

Recently, I’ve been doing some work with an organisational client on the Drama Triangle. Stephen Karpman’s famous model is now in its 60s and still…

Wellbeing: Dwelling and Mobility

A New Year reflection after a long time of not blogging! 2021 passed without a new word appearing in this journal. What have I been…

The Paradoxical Theory of Change

What’s the problem? Let’s fix it! Then let’s move onto the next problem! The clock is ticking, we need to DO SOMETHING! What’s the gap?…

My selves have lost their compartments

Imagine hosting a party in your own home. At this party is everybody in your life: Partner, Kids, Siblings, Parents, Pets, In-laws, Teachers, Students, Clients, Colleagues, Employees,…

What is ‘Gestalt’ exactly?

Gestalt is an approach and way of being that I use in my coaching work and in my life. It is a set of principles…

Learned helplessness

This post is about how clever leaders inadvertently create poor followers.  Many leaders rise to the top of their organisations by being clever, pacey, problem-solvers.…

Let’s not over-simplify stress

Leaders and coaches need to understand stress with a bit of subtlety if we are to avoid some common mistakes. Here are 5 ways of…

Crisis Leadership: 3 Hows

This is a challenging time to be a leader. I want to share three ways I see leaders handling things well. We are in a…

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